You Are Not What You Do
For so many of us our identity is in what we do or what we’ve done. Especially men – what’s the first question we ask each other when we meet another man? “What do you do?” There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s safe small talk. But that’s not who we are.
God loves us based on our position not our accomplishments – our position as His son or daughter. Nothing we ever accomplish (good or bad) can ever change that. Nothing we do can make Him love us more or less than He does in this moment. In every moment. He’s that consistent.
We all say we believe that, but many of us secretly don’t. I say “secretly” because often it’s secret even from ourselves. We can test ourselves to see if we inwardly believe we are what we do, though. When we get mad at someone for disagreeing with us, when we take someone’s disagreement with what we said or did as a personal affront, it’s often because we believe that we are what we do. “If you attack what I do or say, you’re attacking me!” Do you see it?
You are special to God because you are you. You are valuable because you bear the image of God (see Genesis 1:26-27) whether you realize it or not. The trick is to understand who you really are, the unique person He made you to be.
Psalm 139:13-14 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” So before you were even born, before you had done anything good or bad, you were God’s wonderful work. And nothing we do can ever undo His work.
So let’s stop trying to be what we do. Let’s discover and walk in who we really are. Ask Him to take you on a journey of discovery.
Have you started this journey? What are you discovering? Do you identify with this? Tell us your story in the comments. What do you think?
Love the reminder that we are loved so much by God that we can mess up and still be loved! In Gods eyes My mess ups are usually something He brings around to good for His purpose. I’m His daughter first and he loves me – that’s so who I want to be. And out of being love, I can love others. What I’m called to do. Thanks Dave.
“…out of being loved, I can love others.” I love that. Well said, Tammy!
Dave, I’ve been on this journey for most of my life. I realize that Christ died to make up for my shortcomings; He knew that no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did in this life, it would never be enough to “earn” my way into heaven. He loved me (all of us!) so much that He “earned” it for me. Believing that what I do would make me more acceptable in his eyes (or anyone else’s for that matter) would be a slap in His face. I imagine standing at the pearly gates. I don’t think there will be questions about how big of a house we lived in or what kind of car we drove. I don’t expect anyone to ask what my job title was. I would expect it to be more about how I treated people or how much love I shared with my fellow man. I imagine my Father waiting for me on the other side with open arms. It’s all about the love!
Great comment, Carol. You’re right, I think the question on that Day will not be, “Did you have the biggest house?” or even “Did you go to church every week?” But I think it’ll be, “Did you learn to love?”
I agree! It’s so wonderful to have our Father’s love surrounding me and flowing through me out into the world every day of my life!
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Thanks for this reminder.
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